Long story short, I have never been happy. I have always had a deep, abiding sense of incompleteness and dissatisfaction. I always want to run away. I always think that if I attain a certain goal, I’ll be happy then. Needless to say, that never happens.

I’ve also had panic attacks with varying frequency for the last ten years of my life. I distinctly remember having a panic attack in the seventh grade during Sunday school. I told my teacher I had to go to the bathroom. I ran out, hid in a stall, and calmed down. I don’t remember what happened; I just remember being scared. Fifteen minutes later, I went back in. They had sent someone to look for me because I had been gone for so long. I described it to my teacher as my heart skipping a beat.

My panic attacks were never very frequent. They happened often enough to scare me, but not often enough to warrant discussing with anyone. Until last October.

October 3. Sunday. I had five panic attacks in the span of one day. The next day was the same. I couldn’t attend class, or eat, or sleep. I called my GP and got a prescription for a sedative; I was supposed to pop one every time I panicked. It worked well. I lived like that for two weeks. I lost 20 pounds. And then I went on Zoloft. It didn’t work for me. I didn’t sleep for a week. The panic attacks returned. My therapist warned my parents that I was a hazard to myself. I took a week off school. I switched to Lexapro. It did its job, but it made me into a zombie. I couldn’t concentrate; I lived in a fog.

So I’m going off it. I’ll be medication-free in approximately one week.

My depression is back.

So I’m asking myself, asking my friends, asking my therapist, asking people who’s been there before; what can I do? How can I be happy without a pill?

I’m doing Tai Chi. I’m working on several research projects that I love. I work part-time; I don’t have much spare time at all.

But at the end of the day, I am unhappy. I want more. I can’t manage my emotions.

So I’m going to try to figure out how to construct my happiness. The plan is to blog about it. Obviously, I am bad at blogging. So I’m going to give myself a plan.

This week’s goals: blog about tai chi. Go running and blog about it. Blog about therapy. Do something, anything. Take responsibility for your own happiness.

My time in Europe is winding down and I am looking forward to a lazy July in Arkansas. Today I was Stumbling (of course) and I landed on a collection of quotes by Kurt Vonnegut, including the one above. I love Kurt Vonnegut and have for a long time. His personal philosophy, expressed in his interviews and his memoirs, fascinates me. I can find something to identify with in everything he said or published.

But I want to know – was he happy?

I’m going to investigate this question over the summer. Stay tuned.

This image is inspiring me to keep on typin’.

via Garance Dore

The end always comes. Sometimes sooner than you expected. And it is always hard to part from someone, no matter who. There is a special kind of hurt, touched with sweetness, that you feel just when you’re starting to love someone and you know you can’t stay together. It’s the kind of wound you can’t dress or staunch. The best thing for it is to open your windows and lie in bed in the early afternoon.

Tomorrow is the first day of April. After a presentation at 9 tomorrow morning, I am officially on spring break. In a week, I will be in Berlin, and then in Prague, and then in Vienna, and then in Budapest. My semester abroad is beginning to get stressful – I’m running out of money and running out of time to devote to several enormous research projects. I was ambitious with my research proposals and I am certain that I can do my topics justice if I can just get my shit together.

Tomorrow marks six months since the life changes I so cryptically referred to in my first post on this blog. It’s sobering to think about how much has changed in six months. I didn’t think I would make it to this point, and yet here I am.

I am rather belatedly continuing this blog for simple reasons – I need a change of format, I need to discover a new blogging community, I need a blog that my friends don’t read so I can discuss my life more candidly.

I don’t currently have any pressing thoughts to blog. I was just informed, via text message and then via Twitter, that a friend from high school is in deep, deep trouble with the law. I’m shocked and sleepy and sobered at the memory of October of 2009, the anniversary of my new life. I don’t mean to be cryptic – I never expected to be here, in Brussels, leading a joyful life. I never thought I could recover from the blow I received when I lost what I expected to be a long-term partner under such painful circumstances. But it’s possible to get used to anything, and embracing something comes right after accepting it. I’ve embraced my new life without you in it, and so, ex-boyfriend, I will address you for the first time in six months – good riddance.

In the past two months, the way I think and feel has drastically changed. So I need a new blog.
Here you will find posts about politics, fashion, books, poems, nail polish, exhaustion, late nights, tea, and friends. In sum, you will find posts about me.

“The self is too small an object for perpetual enthusiasm.”

Huston Smith said that in his book The World’s Religions. I read that book my freshman year of college, and ever since that quote has been stuck in my mind. This blog is a reincarnation of its predecessor, also named Today for the First Time. I remain convinced that every person needs to strive for something bigger than themselves. I don’t know what I am striving for. I hope this blog will help me figure it out.